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Recently I faced a Grey Knight army with a Vindicare against my Imperial Guard. On the first turn it fired what is referred to as a 'Turbo-Penatrator' (ding-dong) which rolls 4d6 against armour. I called cheating and was shown the rulebook, and yes, that is possible, unsurprisingly the shot penetrated and because the rifle is AP1 the Leman Russ exploded.

Now I'm not unfamiliar with defeat, in fact I'm accustomed to it. However this was different, whilst I know a Russ isn't invulnerable it usually takes very good luck to bring one down. This Vindicator however struck such a strong chord of unrelenting broken-ness that I had to investigate further by seeing how likely it is for one to kill a tank with 14 Armour in one shot.

I found out that the basic Vindicare Assassin is 145 Pts and comes with all the trimmings. A comparable Imperial guard Tank-Killer is the Leman Russ Vanquisher, which rolls 2D6 plus 8 to penetrate, which is 155 not including upgrades such as Pask, Sponsons, Dozer-Blade etc.

For both units I rolled 150 D6s to hit, 150 2D6/4D6s (L.R.V/Ass.) to penetrate, and 150 D6s to see the result of a penetration. The results were as follows: A Vindicare has a 92% chance to hit, a L.R.V. 50%. A Vindicare has a 48% chance to Penetrate, a 13% chance to glance, and a 39% chance to do nothing, whilst the L.R.V. has a 59% chance to penetrate, 10% chance to glance, and 31% chance to not do anything. Finally a Vindicare has a 50% chance to wreak whilst the L.R.V. has a 33% chance (of course a Vindicare can also wreak on a glancing hit due to the AP1).

After number crunching I came to the conclusion that a Vindicare has a 63% chance to hit, penetrate and destroy a armour 14 tank (the percentage does not account the potential glancing hit wreckages caused by the AP1 rule), whereas a Leman Russ Vanquisher has a 48% chance to do the same. Did I mention that a Vindicare gets Fearless, Fleet, Infiltrate, Move Though Cover, Stealth, Lightning Reflexes, 4 attacks, WS 8, Ld 10, and 2 wounds? As well as being able to fire rounds which ignore invulnerable saves and is allowed to allocate wounds to their liking? All for 10 points less than a Vanilla Vanquisher?

Yes I know my experiment isn't at the apex of scientific method and yes I am aware that 'Grey Knights Are Broken' has been discussed for a while but this I feel is yet another example of why Matt Ward is a chugging idiot.

Nevermind...what I had previously would be mean...

What T is a vindicare? 3 aint it? So S6 weapons can kill it in one hit yes?

Out of curiosity, how many S6 weapons can an IG army field?

Atleast its one per army xD

However the vindicare assassins are nowhere near as reslient as a Vanquisher. Just do anything to deny it its 2+ cover save (I'm pretty sure Ordinance Bombardment denies a cover save).

LunaHound wrote:Atleast its one per army xD

And it takes up an elite slot.
You can have 3 vanquishers per slot.

Actually a Assassin is T4 and an Elite Choice (so you can field 3 of the blighters). Also, yes, I could take 3 Vanquishers, but that's 465 pts. of dedicated Tank Killer vs 435 pts. of 3 general HQ/Tank Killer.

fattoler wrote:Actually a Assassin is T4 and an Elite Choice (so you can field 3 of the blighters)

No

fattoler wrote:Actually a Assassin is T4 and an Elite Choice (so you can field 3 of the blighters)

No, vindicares are unique. And I am sure they are T3. Besides, T4 doesn't change anything, considering the amount of S8 and S9 weapons IG could field.

fattoler wrote:Actually a Assassin is T4 and an Elite Choice (so you can field 3 of the blighters)

Only 1 he is unique.

I stand corrected. Which means my opponent was cheating when he fielded 2!

Vindicares are T4 and Unique, so one per army.


Its a bargain for the cost but hardly overpowered.

The Vindicare and Psyflemen dreadnoughtsare the only long range anti-tank the GK codex has(aside from Landraiders)

think what he is trying to say is the tank killer in his force isnt as good as a all rounder in another force, in a vacum i would agree with him, but the game isnt in a vacum, so a better comparison should be to another all rounder in the guard codex... veterans, when you compare vets to the vindi, you get more of a ballance, both units are faily good at a wide range of tasks you set them, for relativly few points

The Vindicare does have very few weaknesses, namely only being T4 with 2 wounds.

3+ cover/6+ FnP most of the time.


Now if you can't kill what amounts to a 2 wound space marine I think you have other issues. There is alot of stuff that ignores cover in the IG codex.


Just accept that he will kill 1 LRBT every time he shoots.

Fair point, the problem is is that I did field veterans, who despite being given some Plasma guns couldn't kill the Grey Knights fast enough, and since my commander was killed compliments of the Vindicare there was little to do in terms of orders. Maybe if I played at higher points so I could field a Griffon or another L. Russ to deny cover saves. (Yet again that would invite some of the nastier units of a Grey Knight's army).

Now I want to field 9 Vanquishers xD

Your math is wrong too, the Assassin uses a sniper, so its a base 3S +4D6 that rend, so 6s could add up to 3 but a min of 1 more to armor pen.

but thats why you take a vin assassin, to take out one big take or take off an enemy inv save for the game. depends what you need.

fattoler wrote:Fair point, the problem is is that I did field veterans, who despite being given some Plasma guns couldn't kill the Grey Knights fast enough, and since my commander was killed compliments of the Vindicare there was little to do in terms of orders. Maybe if I played at higher points so I could field a Griffon or another L. Russ to deny cover saves. (Yet again that would invite some of the nastier units of a Grey Knight's army).

Well, on the bright side, even at higher points he could only have 1 assassin.
You may want to get that LRBT that ignores cover. And hellhounds.

it's part of the grey knights book, this really shouldnt surprise you.

it destroys a landraider with a sniper rifle every turn, that's funny.

4+ save, 4+ invuln save, 6+ FNP and 2 wounds is not exactly the most easily killed thing in the game either. lol at people acting like it.

he can get 3+ invuln from cover, sweet, he has a storm shield too. because those do nothing to increase survivability right?

I think it should be prudent to mention that this was 1000 points and I had only 2 Leman Russes (I had had some bad experiences with large tank armies so I decided to go for a few more Infantry)

no assassin can get a storm shield, and there T4...what books are you looking at?

My assassin has died multiple times to a Str8+ shot on the first turn when I failed my 3+

Its good but not THAT good and he still dies to small arms fire like a chum.

DK wrote:Your math is wrong too, the Assassin uses a sniper, so its a base 3S +4D6 that rend, so 6s could add up to 3 but a min of 1 more to armor pen.

but thats why you take a vin assassin, to take out one big take or take off an enemy inv save for the game. depends what you need.

You mean I was being conservative with my calculations?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DK wrote:no assassin can get a storm shield, and there T4...what books are you looking at?

Well in the Grey Knight's Codex I borrowed (they may have revised it since) all assassins get Toughness 4.

fattoler wrote:

DK wrote:Your math is wrong too, the Assassin uses a sniper, so its a base 3S +4D6 that rend, so 6s could add up to 3 but a min of 1 more to armor pen.

but thats why you take a vin assassin, to take out one big take or take off an enemy inv save for the game. depends what you need.

You mean I was being conservative with my calculations?

yes...the chance to pen 14 armor doin quick math is like this

base 3S + avrage of 2d6=7 so far 3+14=17 plus any rends for 6s...but only gets one shot a turn.

Yeah, average penetration roll is 17(disregarding the additional D3s from rending)

of course even then it only has a 50% chance to kill the vehicle unless its open topped.

Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, average penetration roll is 17(disregarding the additional D3s from rending)

of course even then it only has a 50% chance to kill the vehicle unless its open topped.

...Which is still higher than the supposed dedicated tank-hunting tank...

BASICALLY he has a 3+ INVULN save so yes basically he comes equiped with a storm shield as far as i'm concerned

fattoler wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Yeah, average penetration roll is 17(disregarding the additional D3s from rending)

of course even then it only has a 50% chance to kill the vehicle unless its open topped.

...Which is still higher than the supposed dedicated tank-hunting tank...

Assasins cant survive , they need to do what they need to do, and then.... die.
The rule works pretty well portraying that

kb305 wrote:BASICALLY he has a 3+ INVULN save so yes basically he comes equiped with a storm shield as far as i'm concerned

that kinda thinking means you have no means to use something that ing cover.

kb305 wrote:BASICALLY he has a 3+ INVULN save so yes basically he comes equiped with a storm shield as far as i'm concerned

Except it can be ignored by certain weapons, of which the Guard codex has quite a few.

Instead of rolling dice next time, you could try this:
http://www.heresy-online.net/combatcalculator/shooting.php


TBH, most of the assasins when I've come across them have caused me to pause and go 'wait.. what?'.
But it's never really been a paricular issue for me.
With my Tau it fell over to plasma rifles, with Dark Eldar... well, poison weapons / lances.
They've tended to wipe out 1-2 things, but then fall over.